Nitrogen rich carbon nitride synthesized by copolymerization with enhanced visible light photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Abstract

A novel method for preparing visible light enhanced photocatalytic carbon nitride was developed by copolymerization of melamine with a nitrogen rich precursor. The synthesized carbon nitride, CN–THDT_x, with a unique structure exhibits strong visible light absorption ability. XPS results confirmed that the as-prepared CN–THDT_x contains abundant nitrogen in a range of 53.0–77.4 at%. Moreover, the band gap can be efficiently controlled by changing the ratio of THDT. Under visible light irradiation, CN–THDT_0.15 exhibited the highest hydrogen production (2.3 times than pure g-C₃N₄). After twelve continuous cycling experiments for hydrogen production for 4 h and carrying out one experiment for 48 h, the photocatalytic activity of CN–THDT_0.15 showed negligible change, suggesting that the prepared sample has great potential application for photocatalytic generation of hydrogen from water splitting.